There are four Core Development Principles (known as DP's 1-4). Policy DP1 encourages the re-use, or conversion, of empty buildings, which are of architectural or historic interest. DP2 is concerned with providing a high quality of life, for this and future generations. It advises that development plans are required to identify and protect environmental "capital". DP3 suggests that authorities should include local design strategies within development plans or as supplementary planning guidance. This includes conservation area appraisals, and requires that new development should demonstrate good design quality and respect for its setting. DP4 again refers to the opportunities in the region for the re-use of old industrial buildings of historic interest and the way in which local communities can input into the development process through, for example, village appraisals, village design statements and conservation area appraisals.

RPG13 describes the North West region as a "bi-polar" metropolitan region, in a coastal position, with extensive rural areas. In directing a significant proportion of growth to Liverpool and Manchester city centres and their surrounding inner areas, RPG13 notes that their distinctive architectural heritage must be conserved, modern developments must be of high design quality and that it is necessary to improve the design and management of the public realm as well as adding greenery (Policy SD1) and that there are significant opportunities to imaginatively re-use older existing buildings. As paragraph 3.14 states "Economic capital should be made of the two Regional Poles’ historic character". Outside the North West Metropolitan Area "Chester, Carlisle, Lancaster and Preston are regarded as historic towns requiring continual conservation with sensitive integration of new development, where needed, plus a regard for maintaining and enhancing their setting." (Policy SD3).

Finally, on a more topical note, for those Authorities facing Housing/Neighbourhood Renewal, the RPG calls for the prior evaluation of the environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of the way any proposed clearance and after-uses will affect the surrounding area and the local community (Policy UR6). As para 8.9 notes "Even within the Regeneration Priority Areas, where much modernisation and enhancement is needed, there will be scope to undertake some analysis of the historic character of the landscape and to conserve, enhance and re-use – with sensitivity, but also in innovative and exciting ways – their most valued historic features". Policy ER4 specifically covers the contribution of Built Heritage to Regeneration.

If you are interested in joining this visit please reply to Glyn Marsden, either by post or by E-mail, no later than 16 June 2003.

Glynn Marsden

Conservation Team

Planning Service

2^nd Floor, Millennium House

Liverpool L1 6JF

The original Liverpool Airport was built between 1935 and 1939, the listed terminal closing in 1986, following the relocation of the airport to its current site. The hangars and terminal fell into a very poor state of repair. In 1995, the buildings were acquired by English Partnerships as part of the wider Speke/Garston Regeneration and the assets passed onto the newly created Speke Garston Development Company, a public-private partnership, in 1996.

Speke Garston Development Company initially arranged a competition in 1996. Neptune Developments were selected to undertake the refurbishment of the complex given their partner’s commitment to the site (David Lloyd Leisure and Whitbread Plc). Detailed negotiations to accommodate the end users in an innovative but sympathetic design took place. Key players were Local Authority planners, Speke Garston Development Company, Falconer Chester Architects (Neptune’s architects) and English Heritage. The collective aim was to solve the problems of refurbishing the three buildings in a manner that would accommodate modern day end users without compromising the historic fabric of these large buildings.

In terms of their architecture, the three Listed Buildings are probably the most notable structures in south Liverpool. They also hosted many memorable events such as the Beatles returning from America in the 60’s and Liverpool FC’s triumphal returns from European Cup competitions in the 70’s and 80’s.

In order to secure their future, it was clear from the outset that the key building was the terminal building. However the building was not designed for modern commercial requirements, but an operational airport terminal with many different and unusual sized rooms.

The internal design of the Terminal Building did not lend itself to easy conversion to a 4* hotel. It was clear from the outset that an extension to accommodate the bulk of the bedrooms would be necessary. It was agreed that a ‘reverse’ of the curved structure of the original terminal, with a lightweight structure on top, would present an innovative solution to the problem. Designs were chosen to ensure that the link between the old and new would be seamless. Such facilities could not have been achieved in the original terminal, without destroying its historic character.

The total cost of the hotel development was £15.2 million of which £6 million was secured from ERDF Objective 1 funding and English Partnerships. The number of jobs created by the hotel has been 150.

David Lloyd leisure, a company that required extensive internal open space for its tennis facilities fully understood the need to protect the heritage of the Hangar. it was possible to retain the large hangar door openings, and the feeling of space through the extensive use of glazed curtain walling. The hangar doors were refurbished and fixed partially open to retain the traditional hangar appearance. The fitness and leisure side of the facility was located adjacent to the original Hangar doors with the six tennis courts in the refurbished hangar space.

The attractiveness of the building and their confidence in the vision of the development of the rest of the complex meant that the developer met all costs with no grant aid, a total sum of £9.2 million of inward investment. To date, the leisure club is hugely popular with local people (over 5000 members) and employs 70 staff.

Although Hangar 2 remains unlet on a permanent basis, it was also renovated to the same high standards as adopted for Hangar 1 and the Terminal Building, being essential to the success of the project. To date, it has been used for the production of films and as a venue for opera. Acknowledging the difficulty of letting not one, but two large Listed Buildings with their associated constraints, the use of the building had to be flexible.

A decision was made to permit the use of Hangar 2 as a call centre, should a leisure user not materialise. This presented a significant shortfall in parking within the terminal complex and junction capacity problems. The local authority therefore considered it necessary to 'envelope' Hangar 2 within the adjacent Estuary Business Park to solve parking and access issues. This has been achieved without adversely affecting the setting of the Listed Buildings, through the careful use of low internal boundary fencing and careful landscaping. Whilst physically separating the Hangar from the terminal building and Hangar 1 on the ground, the enveloping solution retains the relationship of the three buildings as a cohesive group. The cost of the refurbishment was £2.7 million of which £1.175 million was secured through ERDF Objective 1 funding. If used as a call centre (which is the long term intention), up to 450 jobs will be realised.

Local Authority planners, and in particular the Local Authority’s Conservation Officer, worked very closely with architects and the contractor to ensure that all aspects of the refurbishment were as authentic as possible. As a result, Speke is held up as an exemplar as to how such a unique group of buildings can be sensitively re-used.

Such schemes can change the image of an area, acting as catalysts to further inward investment, restoring civic pride and create long-term job opportunities.

The net result is the re-use of three potentially unusable Grade II* Listed Buildings, and levering £20 million of inward investment into one of the poorest areas in the country. It also demonstrates that large dilapidated buildings, which have significant planning constraints, can be brought back into use using limited grant funding in comparison to the cost of the project as a whole.

The restoration of the former airport complex has received a number of awards and recognition from various bodies, including:

RTPI Built Heritage Award 2002

Civic Trust, RICS - Regeneration Award

Liverpool Architectural Design Trust, MIPIM;

Property Week Regeneration Award 2002

The first question was whether it was actually appropriate to restore the buildings? Would it be better to consolidate the remains and preserve them as ruins?

The Hall had spent most of the last century as a barn, under a simple 19^th Century roof. An 18^th Century print showed that it had been a ruin before. However the cottages had been in use as recently as the 1960s and as parts of their original roof trusses survived in store. English Heritage advised that it was proper to restore them. If the buildings could be restored and used again, the Preservation Trust, which operates as a rolling fund, might have a role in the project.

The Trust commissioned a feasibility study from Donald Insall Associates, helped by a grant from the Architectural Heritage Fund. The report concluded that restoration was a possibility and planned a route by which acquisition of the complex might be attempted, as well as suggesting a number of funding opportunities.

The buildings were in the ownership of a Miss Vaughan, who had inherited them from a friend. She was unable to gather the resources to restore the buildings herself and agreed to sell the buildings to Cheshire County Council for a modest sum, covered by an English Heritage acquisition grant. The County Council, in turn, passed them to the Trust, who set about the task of raising the better part of a million pounds to fund the restoration.

The vast majority of this sum came from the Heritage Lottery Fund, though invaluable grant assistance was also received from English Heritage, Cheshire County Council and Ellesmere Port and Neston Borough Council. A loan was also obtained from the Architectural Heritage Fund.

While the Trust’s professional team were putting together the repair package, an archaeological investigation was undertaken by National Museums on Merseyside. This revealed crisp stone footings of lost buildings, but surprisingly few artefacts.

The site and buildings were secured by a preliminary contract executed by W.D Stant in the early part of 2001, and the main restoration contract, undertaken by Linford Bridgeman, began in the summer of 2002.

To the intense relief of the Trust’s management, a new private owner for the buildings has been found, willing to accept the public access obligations that accompany substantial public funding. It is understood that he is now discussing future uses for the buildings and a final phase of fitting out with English Heritage and the planning authority. MS

Ince was one of the earliest recorded properties of St Werburgh's Abbey, Chester. The Manor is recorded in the Domesday Book and Edward I was entertained at the Manor in 1277. In 1399 the abbot and convent obtained a license to crenellate, confirmed in 1410. At the Dissolution the Manor remained in church ownership until the death of Henry VIII in 1547. It then passed to Sir Richard Cotton and subsequently through the hands of several notable families.

The buildings include a single open hall with massive walls containing intermural passage's. To the north east of the hall can be found the range of former monastery cottages that originally contained four separate chambers. Surrounding the complex is a substantial surviving sandstone wall with stone copings and plinths.

The function of the grange was to provide food and raw materials for the parent monastic house. The exact number of granges that once existed is not precisely known but is believed to have been several thousand. Only a small percentage can be accuracy located today. Ince is one of only five examples, in the north of England, of surviving standing manorial buildings which formally belonged to an abbey. The monastery cottages are one of the best-preserved examples in England, while the hall possesses the rare and unusual feature of an entrance defended against attack.

St Werburgh's was a community of secular canons until the conquest in 1066 but was reinstated as a Benedictine Abbey in 1093

PH after schedule entry

Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies (LUCAS) is holding a day school also on 11^th November, at Manchester Town Hall. The school will explore techniques and applications for architectural historians and related professionals.

Speakers will explain available sources, how to interpret those sources and a range of applications to which those sources can be applied. Speakers will include Anna Eavis of the National Monuments Record, the architectural historian Joseph Sharples, Michael Moss Professor of Archives at Glasgow University, the architect Andrew Wright OBE and the editor of the Local Historian, Dr Alan Crosby.

The course costs £95 for non-LUCAS members or £75 for LUCAS members including lunch.

For more information contact Adrian Allan at the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, PO Box 123, Liverpool L69 3DA, tel0151 794 2093, ara@liv.ac.uk, fax 0151 794 2681 or go to the LUCAS website at